Uprising in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine Public protests thundered into a full-throttle civil uprising in Ukraine on Sunday, as hundreds of thousands answered President Viktor Yanukovych's dismissive actions with their biggest rally, demanding he and his government resign.

At the height of the unrest Sunday night, a seething crowd toppled and smashed a statue of Lenin, the most prominent monument to the communist leader in Kiev. The act was heavy with symbolism, underscoring the rage at Russia over its role in the events that prompted the protests: Yanukovych's abrupt refusal to sign sweeping political and free-trade deals with the European Union.

After an electrifying assembly in Independence Square in downtown Kiev, the huge crowd surged across the capital, erecting barriers to block streets around the presidential headquarters and pitching huge tents in strategic intersections. They were not challenged by police, who largely have disengaged since their bloody crackdown on protesters Nov. 30 sharply increased outrage at the government. Thousands more people gathered in other cities.

International concern over the unrest in Ukraine appeared to deepen Sunday, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Yanukovych and Western leaders continued to call on him to respond to the demonstrators' demands. The EU has been eager to draw Ukraine, a nation of 46 million, into closer alliance with the West, while Russia has sought to safeguard its major economic and political interests in its close neighbor. Making the crisis more acute, Ukraine is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and is desperate for financial assistance from abroad.

The spreading disorder set off a new round of speculation that Yanukovych would declare a state of emergency and potentially turn again to force by ordering the removal of demonstrators from Independence Square and several public buildings, including City Hall. Security services reportedly were preparing to bring charges of treason against three opposition leaders in Parliament.

One of those leaders, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, of the opposition Fatherland party, called for mass civil disobedience if martial law is imposed.

As the Lenin statue was pulled down and men took turns splintering it with a sledgehammer, protesters twice sang the national anthem, removing their caps and covering their hearts with their hands. Onlookers shielded their faces from the flying granite chips as they cheered them on.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Mykola Azarov called the statue's destruction “barbaric.”

Yanukovych's decision not to sign the accords with the EU, reversing more than a year of promises to complete them, touched off the protests Nov. 21. But a series of other events have helped the protest leaders gather larger and larger crowds, while confounding Yanukovych's efforts to tamp them down. The movement was injected with a new wave of popular fury after the police crackdown on a few hundred protesters Nov. 30 – violence unheard-of even during the Orange Revolution protests of 2004.

Support for Yanukovych among his usual allies appears to be weakening. Some wealthy businessmen who control television channels have allowed full unfettered coverage of the protests, which has made the crowds larger still. So has aggressive organizing on social media by protest leaders.